An Unexpected Reaction to the Recent Michael Jackson Film

I was reluctant to see the new film about Michael Jackson because I had read that it completely avoided the fact that he was accused of child sexual abuse and grooming. I just went because his dancing has such an influence that almost every day, Facebook Reels feature dancers in the streets, at home, of all colors, shapes, ages, and sizes, doing dance steps inspired by MJ.

I settled down as Michael began, figuring it was going to be a superficial, hagiographic biopic and concert film.

What happened on the screen was so shocking to me that I watched with my mouth open and then started to silently weep. The film shows Michael as a young child, maybe age 10, being brutally beaten by his father while his other siblings and his mother watched without intervening. His mother loved him, but she was powerless to stop his father’s abuse.

His father, Joseph Jackson, is portrayed as a violent, controlling, selfish parent who probably would have been charged with child abuse if charges were brought. While Michael was beaten, his family watched, and no one intervened to help him. Michael was a brilliant singer, performer, and dancer, yet even when he got older and was an international celebrity, he still lived at home and was still controlled by his father. He needed to get his lawyer and top people in the recording industry to intervene when he wanted to start a solo career or oppose his father’s wishes that he perform with his siblings. He was unable to confront his father on his own. Finally, at a last family concert, he announced publicly that he would no longer be doing concerts with his siblings and would be going solo. It was a big break and a pattern that I could recognize and relate to.

I was, as a child, raised by a cruel, violent, controlling mother. She punished and beat me, and my family watched it happen. No one helped me. My father was generally emotionally gentle with me, but as I got older, when my father was egged on by my mother, he also beat me.

Unlike Michael, I fought back with my mouth and by never letting them think they got the best of me. Even though I resisted and confronted my mother about her behavior, the abuse affected every aspect of my life. I also made a public statement by not going to my mother’s funeral when she died.

Whenever I thought about the childhood abuse, I felt anger and rage. In therapy many years ago, I expressed that rage and thought I had dealt with it. But watching this film was the first time I ever felt the sadness and actually cried. Something was loosened inside of me, and the feelings of hurt that had been buried for so long emerged.

Michael became the “King of Pop,” and I was certainly no “queen,” but I was the president of my class at a very large high school and voted the most popular. What he couldn’t get at home and I couldn’t get at home, I got from my peers and teachers.

In another parallel, at one point in the film, Michael saw on TV that the rival gangs in Los Angeles were having a meeting. He went there, wanting to use music and dancing as a path to peace.

One day in Santa Fe, I read in the paper that the rival gangs were having a meeting. With no hesitation, I went there, met them, and offered to write and perform a play with them. And I volunteered for years in the local juvenile detention center, teaching them to write, act, and express themselves to find inner and outer peace.

Although no one could help Michael when he was being abused as a child, he always reached out to help kids, especially those who were struggling. Although no one could help me, I always reached out to younger people and people in pain and tried to be there for them.

I worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and was even a film critic for a while. But I suspended all critical judgment about this film. I was so moved, so personally involved, that I was still weeping after I left the theatre. I could not get over the fact that for the first time in my life, I actually felt the deep sadness that those who were supposed to protect and love me instead abused me and caused me so much suffering. My reaction was visceral and not cerebral.

My husband insisted that we go to a quiet restaurant to eat, so that we could talk and process my unexpected feelings. I wondered if many—or even any—other viewers have a reaction like mine to this film. I believe that art in any form has the potential to affect those who see it and make them able to see or feel their own lives in a new and powerful way.

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I asked psychologist Andrea Campbell, PhD, a trauma expert and survivor, to comment on the film and my experience. “The feelings were frozen, and when those frozen feelings thawed, you got to experience the original pain and sadness that you could only express in anger,” she began.

“You scared your parents because you were a free, unbridled child, and it terrified them because that was extinguished in them. Parents are inhibiting in us what was not allowed to flourish in them, “she continued. “They pounded their rage into you. You couldn’t feel the vulnerable feelings—rage isn’t vulnerable. It’s hot, energetic, righteous, and powerful. Vulnerability, which can be very powerful, was equated with weakness. They saw in you what was depressed and denied in them. And when you watched the film, you felt safe enough to have those feelings melt. That’s healing: to finally feel your feelings. The next step is to self-soothe.”

I said that I feel better when I write about it. “That’s your self-soothing,” she commented. “It’s a port in the storm. Also, I think that you couldn’t be vulnerable, but you took care of others in your life because no one took care of you. You had a disowned part in you, and you couldn’t see that in yourself, but you can see it in someone else, and I think that’s a wonderful compensation.”

Dr. Campbell said that when the sadness comes up, you acknowledge it, you self-soothe, and it passes. “Some people drug or drink or bite their nails or have affairs or become abusers. Compassion for others is a good outcome, and also compassion for yourself. Not pity. Compassion is different from wallowing in a swamp of pity. Pity has no power. It doesn’t get you out of the swamp, and you can drown in it. Compassion has wings of wisdom. It is liberating.”

Thank you to all those involved in the making of Michael. And thank you, Dr. Campbell.